Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Glasp VS HackMD

Compare Glasp VS HackMD and see what are their differences

Glasp logo Glasp

Social web highlighter

HackMD logo HackMD

Fast and flexible, real-time collaborative markdown, inspired by Hackpad.
  • Glasp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-14

Highlight the web and share the gist with peers. Learn from like-minded people. Glasp is an easier and faster way to highlight text and leave notes on the web. With one click, the content youโ€™ve collected appears across all your devices. ๐Ÿ“š

Glasp beautifully organizes your collection of highlights, so that you can easily come back to what truly matters to you anytime. By following like-minded people, you will discover useful content that expands your knowledge and thoughts. Collective learning is how humans got smarter across generations.ใ€€

โ€”โ€”

Key Features: โœ… Highlight text on the web โœ… Take notes on saved content and highlights โœ… Add tags to your highlights โœ… Discover useful content from like-minded people

โ€”โ€”

How to Use Glasp: 1. Click "Add to Chrome". 2. Log in to Glasp from the extension menu. 3. Select text and click your favorite color from a pop-up color tip. 4. You can see your highlights and notes on your profile page and/or Glasp home feed. 5. Add tags or leave comments on your saved content 6. Developing your collection of ideas and thoughts will help you connect the dots with like-minded people ;)

โ€”โ€” Benefits of Using Glasp: + Retain more information and easy to look back ๐Ÿ“š + Extract only important parts and use them for the future citation ๐Ÿ”— + Discover useful information from like-minded people ๐Ÿ” + Share your highlights & notes with friends and peers with one click ๐Ÿš€ + Leave your digital legacy for future generations (contribute to human history) ๐Ÿ™Œ

  • HackMD Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-08-04

Glasp

Website
glasp.co
$ Details
freemium $15.0 / Monthly
Platforms
Web Windows Google Chrome Safari Edge Opera Vivaldi
Release Date
2021 December
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Kazuki Nakayashiki, Kei Watanabe
Employees
1 - 9

Glasp features and specs

  • Highlight web articles
  • Kindle's notes & highlights import
  • Highlight YouTube transcripts
  • Highlight PDFs
  • Export highlights & notes
  • Find top highlights of articles
  • See other people's highlights & notes
  • Showcase reading list

HackMD features and specs

  • Collaboration
    HackMD offers real-time collaborative editing, which allows multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously. This feature enhances teamwork and productivity, especially for remote teams.
  • Markdown Support
    HackMD is built around Markdown, providing a simple yet powerful syntax for formatting documents. Markdown compatibility makes it easy to create well-structured content with minimal effort.
  • Version Control
    The platform includes version history, allowing users to track changes, revert to previous versions, and compare different iterations. This feature ensures that work is not lost and can be systematically reviewed.
  • Integration
    HackMD integrates with popular platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Dropbox, allowing for seamless workflow integration. This makes it easy to incorporate HackMD into existing development and project management processes.
  • Accessibility
    HackMD is a web-based tool, meaning it can be accessed from any device with an internet connection. This ensures that users can collaborate and edit documents from different locations and devices.

Possible disadvantages of HackMD

  • Limited Offline Support
    Since HackMD is primarily a web-based tool, it offers limited functionalities when offline. Users may face challenges accessing and editing documents without an internet connection.
  • Subscription Model
    While HackMD offers a free tier, advanced features and greater collaboration capacities are locked behind a subscription model. This could be a disadvantage for users and small teams with limited budgets.
  • Learning Curve
    Users unfamiliar with Markdown or collaborative editing tools may have a learning curve to overcome. This could affect initial productivity and user experience.
  • Data Privacy
    As a cloud-based service, users may have concerns about data privacy and security. Sensitive information stored on the platform could potentially be accessed by third parties or become vulnerable to data breaches.
  • Performance Issues
    Under heavy usage or with large documents, some users might experience occasional performance issues such as lag or slow syncing. This can disrupt the workflow and collaborative efforts.

Analysis of HackMD

Overall verdict

  • Overall, HackMD is a strong choice for those looking for an effective and flexible markdown editor with robust collaboration features. Its convenience, ease of use, and extensive features make it a good option for both personal and professional use.

Why this product is good

  • HackMD is popular because it offers a collaborative markdown editing environment that's particularly useful for teams and individuals who need to work on documentation, notes, or any kind of markdown-based content. It allows real-time collaboration, version control, and easy sharing, making it ideal for productivity. Its interface is user-friendly, and it supports a variety of integrations with tools like GitHub, Google Drive, and Dropbox. This flexibility and the ability to seamlessly work across different platforms make HackMD a valuable tool for many users.

Recommended for

  • Teams needing real-time collaboration on documents
  • Developers working on project documentation
  • Educators and students for note-taking and sharing
  • Writers preferring markdown for content creation
  • Anyone looking for a cloud-based markdown editor with integrations

Glasp videos

Glasp - Tutorial Video

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Glasp User Profile Page
  • Tutorial - How to use Glasp browser extension (Chrome Extension)
  • Tutorial - Create and take a note on the Atomic Note
  • Tutorial - Highlight Web Pages with Glasp

HackMD videos

hackmd.io opensource application review

More videos:

  • Demo - Techstars Paris 2018 Demo Day - HackMD pitch
  • Review - Screencast-Tutorial zu HackMD

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Glasp and HackMD)
Productivity
58 58%
42% 42
Task Management
0 0%
100% 100
Bookmark Manager
100 100%
0% 0
AI
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Glasp and HackMD

Glasp Reviews

Best AI YouTube Summarizers in 2025 (Free & Paid)
Glasp is a user-friendly tool for straightforward summaries of YouTube videos. It uses typical natural language processing algorithms to ensure that the summaries are simple and coherent. The simplicity of its interface makes it accessible to users of all ages, from tech novices to seasoned professionals. Users can also copy summaries, as in Scripsy, allowing for easy...
Source: www.scripsy.ai

HackMD Reviews

We have no reviews of HackMD yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, HackMD should be more popular than Glasp. It has been mentiond 75 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Glasp mentions (9)

  • Improve your learning with Glasp: A Comprehensive Guide.
    To sign up, visit the Glasp website and click the Sign-up button in the top right corner, or log in if you already have an account. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Unlock Your Full Learning Potential with Glasp: The Ultimate Study Tool
    You can install the Glasp browser extension to your web browser from its website or as an app on Play Store. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Daily Thread / June 29
    For no reason at all, if you wanted to read the transcript of their dumb podcast without giving them views or listens, you can use the Glasp extension on chrome or safari to give you a summary instead of sitting through the video. Source: about 3 years ago
  • How to improve my workflow? Need help.
    Also glasp.co and https://roamresearch.com/ look interesting. I haven't tried them yet. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Whatโ€™s a 100 dollar item you use every day that really boost productivity?
    These ones are free (since im a cheap person) but I use: - This for youtube summaries. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

HackMD mentions (75)

  • Axios Compromised on NPM โ€“ Malicious Versions Drop Remote Access Trojan
    Many of the suggestions in this thread (min-release, ignore script) are defenses for the consumers. I've been working on Proof of Resilience, a set of 4 metrics for OSS, and using that as a scoring oracle for what to fund. Popularity metrics like downloads, stars, etc are easy to fake today with ai agents. An interesting property is that gaming these metrics produces better code, not worse. These are the 4... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • A decentralized peer-to-peer messaging application that operates over Bluetooth
    Bluetooth works most reliably across all devices (within its limited range), but all these p2p apps are indeed moving towards multi-transport support to diversify and widen the connectivity grid: https://hackmd.io/@grjte/bitchat-wifi-aware. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Building a Rust-Style Static Analyzer for C++ with AI
    Https://hackmd.io/@rust-lang-team/rJvv36hq1e I don't know if they later changed their minds. From the meetings notes it seemed they didn't want implement a C++ frontend in rustc. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Hack Club has been handling children's data for 4 years without a privacy policy
    More transparency on the background of this poster: https://hackmd.io/@alexjs/Bkm1KIpxR. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Writing a Good Design Document
    Https://hackmd.io might fit the bill. I use it for some open source projects I work on, but don't really touch the advanced features. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Glasp and HackMD, you can also consider the following products

AdCreative.ai - Give your business an unfair advantage with creatives / banners generated by highly trained Artificial Intelligence.

Documize - Enterprise-grade wiki and knowledge management platform

Raindrop.io - All your articles, photos, video & content from web & apps in one place.

ReadTheDocs - Spend your time on writing high quality documentation, not on the tools to make your documentation work.

My Mind - All your notes, bookmarks, inspiration, articles, and images in one single, private place, enhanced with artificial intelligence.

Boardist - Personal workspace for all the data